Dan Arnold & Alicia Turner, New York Times, 5 March 2018

The Nya Thar Lyaung reclining Buddha is an important religious site in the Bago region of Myanmar. Credit, Frank Bienewald/LightRocket, via Getty Images

While history suggests it is naïve to be surprised that Buddhists are as capable of inhuman cruelty as anyone else, such astonishment is nevertheless widespread — a fact that partly reflects the distinctive history of modern Buddhism. By ‘modern Buddhism,’ we mean not simply Buddhism as it happens to exist in the contemporary world but rather the distinctive new form of Buddhism that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this period, Buddhist religious leaders, often living under colonial rule in the historically Buddhist countries of Asia, together with Western enthusiasts who eagerly sought their teachings, collectively produced a newly ecumenical form of Buddhism — one that often indifferently drew from the various Buddhist traditions of countries like China, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Japan and Thailand.

This modern form of Buddhism is distinguished by a novel emphasis on meditation and by a corresponding disregard for rituals, relics, rebirth all the other peculiarly ‘religious’ dimensions of history’s many Buddhist traditions. The widespread embrace of modern Buddhism is reflected in familiar statements insisting that Buddhism is not a religion at all but rather (take your pick) a ‘way of life,’ a ‘philosophy’ or (reflecting recent enthusiasm for all things cognitive-scientific) a ‘mind science.’

Buddhism, in such a view, is not exemplified by practices like Japanese funerary rites, Thai amulet-worship or Tibetan oracular rituals but by the blandly nonreligious mindfulness meditation now becoming more ubiquitous even than yoga. To the extent that such deracinated expressions of Buddhist ideas are accepted as defining what Buddhism is, it can indeed be surprising to learn that the world’s Buddhists have, both in past and present, engaged in violence and destruction.

There is, however, no shortage of historical examples of violence in Buddhist societies. Sri Lanka’s long and tragic civil war (1983-2009), for example, involved a great deal of specifically Buddhist nationalism on the part of a Sinhalese majority resentful of the presence of Tamil Hindus in what the former took to be the last bastion of true Buddhism (the ‘island of dharma’). Political violence in modern Thailand, too, has often been inflected by Buddhist involvement, and there is a growing body of scholarly literature on the martial complicity of Buddhist institutions in World War II-era Japanese nationalism. Even the history of the Dalai Lama’s own sect of Tibetan Buddhism includes events like the razing of rival monasteries, and recent decades have seen a controversy centering on a wrathful protector deity believed by some of the Dalai Lama’s fellow religionists to heap destruction on the false teachers of rival sects.

‘I think most physicists would agree that Hawking’s greatest contribution is the prediction that black holes emit radiation,’ says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. ‘While we still don’t have experimental confirmation that Hawking’s prediction is true, nearly every expert believes he was right.’

Experiments to test Hawking’s prediction are so difficult because the more massive a black hole is, the lower its temperature. For a large black hole – the kind astronomers can study with a telescope – the temperature of the radiation is too insignificant to measure. As Hawking himself often noted, it was for this reason that he was never awarded a Nobel Prize. Still, the prediction was enough to secure him a prime place in the annals of science, and the quantum particles that stream from the black hole’s edge would forever be known as Hawking radiation.

Some have suggested that they should more appropriately be called Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, but Bekenstein himself rejects this. ‘The entropy of a black hole is called Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, which I think is fine. I wrote it down first, Hawking found the numerical value of the constant, so together we found the formula as it is today. The radiation was really Hawking’s work. I had no idea how a black hole could radiate. Hawking brought that out very clearly. So that should be called Hawking radiation.’

The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy equation is the one Hawking asked to have engraved on his tombstone. It represents the ultimate mash-up of physical disciplines because it contains Newton’s constant, which clearly relates to gravity; Planck’s constant, which betrays quantum mechanics at play; the speed of light, the talisman of Einstein’s relativity; and the Boltzmann constant, the herald of thermodynamics.

The presence of these diverse constants hinted at a theory of everything, in which all physics is unified. Furthermore, it strongly corroborated Hawking’s original hunch that understanding black holes would be key in unlocking that deeper theory.

Hawking’s breakthrough may have solved the entropy problem, but it raised an even more difficult problem in its wake. If black holes can radiate, they will eventually evaporate and disappear. So what happens to all the information that fell in? Does it vanish too? If so, it will violate a central tenet of quantum mechanics. On the other hand, if it escapes from the black hole, it will violate Einstein’s theory of relativity. With the discovery of black hole radiation, Hawking had pit the ultimate laws of physics against one another. The black hole information loss paradox had been born.

Hawking staked his position in another ground-breaking and even more contentious paper entitled Breakdown of predictability in gravitational collapse, published in Physical Review D in 1976. He argued that when a black hole radiates away its mass, it does take all of its information with it – despite the fact that quantum mechanics expressly forbids information loss. Soon other physicists would pick sides, for or against this idea, in a debate that continues to this day. Indeed, many feel that information loss is the most pressing obstacle in understanding quantum gravity.

‘Hawking’s 1976 argument that black holes lose information is a towering achievement, perhaps one of the most consequential discoveries on the theoretical side of physics since the subject was invented,’ says Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley.

Whatdoes Donald Trump want for America? His supporters don’t know. His party doesn’t know. Even he doesn’t know.

If there is a political vision underlying Trumpism, however, the person to ask is not Trump. It’s his éminence grise, Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist of the Trump administration.

Bannon transcended his working-class Virginia roots with a stint in the Navy and a degree from Harvard Business School, followed by a career as a Goldman Sachs financier. He moved to Los Angeles to invest in media and entertainment for Goldman, before starting his own investment bank specializing in media. Through a combination of luck (a fallen-through deal left him with a stake in a hit show called Seinfeld) and a knack for voicing outrage, Bannon remade himself as a minor luminary within the far edge of right-wing politics, writing and directing a slew of increasingly conservative…

In the United States we not only see that religious groups become endangered. Also the female person seems to be placed in a secondary role. We see the growing tendency by several American citizens to consider the female being as second-class citizen whose place belongs in the kitchen and by her kids. the woman according several man should be subject to a strict social hierarchy. This hierarchy can be observed in every stripe of fundamentalism, from Islamic fundamentalism to Christian fundamentalism and it goes like this:

God/Jesus is the head of the man

Man is the head of the woman, subject only to God

Woman is subjugated to a status which is wholly reliant on having “faith” that her husband will do the right thing because he is specially influenced by God by special decree of the Bible.

Fundamentalist website after website counsels women that if her husband does wrong that the only thing she can do is pray that God will guide him to a different decision, that she is not to disagree with him publicly (or in front of children). She is free (sometimes) to give an opinion, but the ultimate decision is the man’s, because he has special dispensation by God to be in that position. The equal status of women is a threat to this hierarchy, and thus, a threat to God.

According to several writers on the net there is “Anti-intellectualism” at the base of the extremist behaviour of so many evangelicals and for others it is a matter to have everything in control. In order of occupancy of the Oval Office, there is an inverse relationship between the number of Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist presidents of the United States and the percentage of each of those denominations in the broader population. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, there are no evangelicals among the current justices of the Supreme Court!

In fact, there aren’t even any Protestants these days!

Dakota O’Leary believes this is why America is seeing so many attacks on women, from trying to pass laws that undermine Roe v. Wade (personhood laws, restrictions on abortions, waiting periods, attempts to push laws to punish abortion doctors, restrictions on being able to get birth control, etc), to going to the trouble of redefining rape as being the woman’s fault, even part of God’s plan, while pushing to give rapists parental rights, to the unfortunate proclamations of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, et. The present president of America even boasted that girls love it to receive the male’s attention and being the prey man has to conquer. Nobody called yet to bring him before court for molesting women, though several women came forward with their story and some even with proof what this man had done to them in the past. To no avail…. He seems to be untouchable.

Many (conservative and evangelical) Americans are convinced that women dress in such a way they demand to be played at and to be raped and that babies born of rape are either a penalty for their attitude or are a blessing from God, (that the female body shuts down its reproductive system when a woman is being raped, etc.).

Controlling women’s bodies while at the same time denouncing “big government” is the popular meme of the fundamentalist mind. Women are simply not meant to destroy that Godly hierarchy set up by the Bible, and in their minds if you can control women, you’ve got half the populace conquered for God.

Fundamentalist anti-intellectualism often manifests itself in a sort of “pseudo-intellectualism” by which those with little or no educational background read a few articles or watch a few videos about a particular subject (usually published by their own religious compatriots, particularly about what a scientific theory is and evolution), and consider themselves “educated” because what they read agreed with their worldview, or, if being highly educated, usually get that education in a fundamentalist educational setting. They even go so far to say that scientists forge or falsify research to mislead pepole and to bring them away from God’s Word. They will then take that “evidence” and proceed to use it against empirical evidence that directly contests and even eviscerates the arguments they have carefully set up around what they have read or seen, and the argument invariably ends with ad hominem attacks against reason, facts, and education — because they have no actual evidence outside of the Bible to use to “win” the argument. A favourite tactic is to call the opposition an “atheist” (or a “liberal”) if someone disagrees with their worldview.

Richard John Santorum

By the extremist evangelicals we also may see that education is then “demonized” as being a covert movement to “indoctrinate” the masses in the secular worldview, and thus, part of the forces of Satan. The American attorney, author, and politician Santorum demonstrates this principle admirably. Although he himself is highly educated, with a bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and JD from Penn State, his Biblical worldview clearly trumps his empirical education and allows him to disregard it as a fly in the ointment in the “light of Biblical truth,” which is, of course, only empirical in that it is in print, in black and white, not empirical that it can actually be proven.

Faith is evidence enough, and reason becomes a threat to faith, thus, reason is from Satan, not God.

A good case in point is the persecution of Copernicus and Galileo by the Catholic Church, regarding the revolution of the Earth around the sun. This old argument, which has been proven in favor of Copernicus and Galileo, has arisen once again to haunt us.

According to a recent National Science Foundation survey, over twenty percent of the respondents believed in the geocentric model popular during the 1500s, that the sun revolves around the earth instead of the other way around. This is old, disproven thinking that comes from the idea that since humanity is God’s creation, naturally, everything revolves around humanity, with humanity at the centre of creation.

Humanity is thus, special. Anything that challenges the idea that humanity is special is thus a threat against God. After all, you can’t feel the earth move, so it must be stationary. You can’t see the stars move (well, you can with a telescope, something called parallax), but you can’t see it with the naked eye, so thus, the earth must be stationary with the sun moving around it.

This is an example of pseudo-intellectualism. You know what you see, but you don’t investigate to see if your assertions are valid under close scrutiny. Fundamentalists cannot afford to indulge in close scrutiny of their ideas, because close scrutiny would most certainly disprove most of what they believe, and they fear, more than anything else, of the erosion of their own faith.

In 1982, forty-four per cent of Americans held strictly creationist views, a statistically insignificant difference from 2012. Furthermore, the percentage of Americans that believe in biological evolution has only increased by four percentage points over the last twenty years.

Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason” and “Freethinkers” sums up the problem of fundamentalist anti-intellectualism succinctly:

This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.

Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Catholic Church for suggesting that humanity on earth was indeed not the centre of the universe. Copernicus did not suffer much persecution while he was alive, but after he was dead, his hypothesis that the earth revolved around the sun certainly did. Galileo dared to revive Copernicus’ idea, and packaged it in a mock debate between characters in a book he wrote called Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) in 1632. The Catholic Church’s militaristic arm, the Inquisition, caught wind of what he had written, and banned his book, and placed Galileo under house arrest.

Now, the Catholic Church’s disagreement with Galileo and Copernicus did not make their ideas less true, which the idea certainly was, and revealed to be true through empirical scientific investigation over a period of years. Instead, the Church deflected the facts as “heresy,” which is something fundamentalists are particularly adept at doing. Ken Ham’s Creation Museum is a testament to this deflection of scientific facts as heresy.

By dismissing evolution as nothing more than a “theory,” (which goes to show pure, deliberate ignorance of what exactly a scientific theory is), we see again the application of the ad hominem attack Christian fundamentalists so love to employ when inconvenient facts get in the way.

Their view of a Christian nation is a very restricted view where there is only place for their Christian conservative doctrinal teachings and where there can only some place for other trinitarian christians as long as they do not go against their views.

Never mind they are not Constitutional scholars. The Constitutional scholars are a threat to them because even though scholars have differing opinions about interpretation of the Constitution, any opinion that differs from the fundamentalist worldview is a direct attack on God. Never mind that the fundamentalist that lives in the general population is not a scientist.

They know better, because the Australian Christian fundamentalist and young Earth creationist living in the United States, Ken Ham and the Bible tell them that there is No Way God would use evolution to create (even though the Bible says nothing on the subject of evolution)

The Bible is black and white. God created the world as it is now in six days, and rested on the seventh.

You will rarely see a fundamentalist in a secular college or university because secular universities and colleges do not agree with their worldview (logically). This is why for the most part they are homeschooled, and go straight from homeschool to fundamentalist universities that teach their worldview.By presenting homeschooling by the parents themselves, who did not receive any educational formation to be a teacher, the kids are squeezed the truth and deprived of sound formation. Opportunities to go to a proper high school or to a good university is taken away. For such children is there only an opening to universities and colleges churned out fundamentalists who are schooled in law, but only an interpretation of law that fits their Biblical worldview. Lawyers or judges who disagree with them, particularly in Supreme Court cases are dismissed ad hominem as “activist lawyers” and “activist judges” (i.e. enemies of God).

This lack of empirical education is changing American society into one that has eroded science education, particularly with their attempts to force the school voucher issue, which is nothing but a bid to get taxpayers to fund fundamentalist education, yet they object to taxpayer funded public education because “secularism” is persecuting them for their beliefs by simply disagreeing with them (because again, nothing they believe is based on empirical evidence).

Jerry Falwell Jr. has ambitious plans to affect life, law and culture in America, and it’s all being germinated at Liberty University, the fundamentalist bastion his father founded. (Source: Americans United)

The lack of empirical education is eroding American society in favour of a “faith based” education that has nothing whatsoever to do with facts that threaten their worldview. Liberty is something they interpret as the freedom to live in a society based solely on their Biblical worldview and does not at all give any liberty to free expression or freedom of thought. Freedom of religion for others in an inclusive society is anathema to them, because such freedom threatens to sideline them to the fringes. Individual liberty does not exist except for them, because they have an inherent distrust of the individual to make reasonable decisions, unless those decisions are based on their interpretation of Scripture. Thus, mainstream Christians are not their brethren; mainstream Christians are simply misinformed individuals who have deluded themselves into believing they are of the family of Christ, and only the clear lens of fundamentalism can see that mainstream Christians have been deceived by the enemy of God which is secular society. In this lies a big problem. They think they have to spread their ‘true religion’ all over the world and consider themselves as the chosen people of God and therefore they also consider themselves as the connected with the Zionists aiming to have peace in the Middle East. Though they do forget that by their refusal to see and understand that Jesus was not his real name, but that is was Jeshua and that he spoke Aramaic and as such used the word “Allah” for “God” plus that in the present day still millions of pepole use that word “Allah” which disgusts those American fundamentalists. And by their action against that word they bring resentment in several believers their heart. Their action against the use of non-english words for “God” gives not only peevishness, but lets many wonder if they belong to the right Christian religion of worse should not become a worshipper of the Only One true God and have to become Jew or Muslim and leave the Christian Trinity doctrine aside. A pity not more by those extremist Christians offended Christians go looking for an alternative Christianity where there is praised the God of Jeshua (Jesus Christ (Allah, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah) and where they still can use their Catholic or protestant Bibles with that word “Allah” in it when it talks about The God.

The extremist fundamentalist Christians say their sole aim is to “obey” God in creating conditions favourable to the return of Christ – and this one thought, this one design drives American foreign policy with Israel (they believe that when the Jews all return to Israel and the 3rd temple is rebuilt that Christ will return, (but not without sacrificing 2/3 of the Jewish people in the process), then all the remaining Jews will become Christians.

American fundamentalists are only interested in Jewish people and Israel insofar as it furthers the return of Jesus Christ. That is all.

Dakota O’Leary is convinced that because fundamentalists are engaged in the idea that they are warriors in a fight for God, (something Christian fundamentalists hold in common with Islamic fundamentalists), and says

Aimed at conservative Christians, the game’s story line begins in a time after the “rapture”, when fundamentalist dogma contends that Christians will go to heaven. The remaining population on earth must then choose between surrendering to or resisting “the Antichrist”, which the game describes as the “Global Community Peacekeepers” whose objective is the imposition of “one-world government”.

“Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces,”

Simpson said.

This is “antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said, adding that he was dismayed by the concept in “Eternal Forces” of using prayer to restore a player’s “spirit points” after killing the enemy.

In the game, combatants on one side pause for prayer, intoning, “Praise the Lord”. A player can lose points for “unnecessary killing” but regain them through prayer.

But Simpson counters,

“The idea that you could pray, and the deleterious effects of one’s foul deeds would simply be wiped away, is a horrible thing to be teaching Christian young people here at Christmas time.”

Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc., which is promoting the new video, has defended the game as “inspirational entertainment” and said its critics were exaggerating. The game is based on the popular “Left Behind” novels, a Bible-based end-of-the-world-saga that has sold more than 63 million copies.

Dakota O’Leary reacts

Now, while this is a disturbing element, and the Left Behind books have genocidal scenes that seem to justify killing masses of unbelievers because they are incorrigible (not ever going to convert to the fundamentalist mindset), it should be reiterated that fundamentalists are not yet at the point in the US where they want to kill people, so let us not be alarmist. However, that being said, the way some fundamentalists are choosing to portray institutional racism and genocide (as punishment for sin and disbelief) to school age children is disturbing, and it is the belief of this scholar that the elements for radical action portrayed in the video game are there – but would need utter desperation in order to explode into being. It is the opinion of this writer that fundamentalists are not yet this desperate, but attempts to normalize killing for God are disturbing, to say the least. The Guardian had this to say about the subject in May of 2012:

The story of the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages. According to Pennsylvania State University Professor Philip Jenkins, a contributing editor for the American Conservative, the Puritans used this passage when they wanted to get rid of the Native American tribes. Catholics used it against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics.

“In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu preachers invoked King Saul’s memory to justify the total slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors,”

writes Jenkins in his 2011 book, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperCollins).

In the fall of 2012, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, were scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly “Bible study” course, came from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). The aim of the CEF is to convert young children to a fundamentalist form of the Christian faith and recruit their peers to the club.

There are now over 3,200 clubs in public elementary schools, up more than sevenfold since the 2001 supreme court decision, Good News Club v Milford Central School, effectively required schools to include such clubs in their after-school programing.

The CEF has been teaching the story of the Amalekites at least since 1973. In its earlier curriculum materials, CEF was euphemistic about the bloodshed, saying simply that “the Amalekites were completely defeated.” In the most recent version of the curriculum, however, the group is quite eager to drive the message home to its elementary school students. The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one:

You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left.

“That was pretty clear, wasn’t it?” the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

Even more important, the Good News Club wants the children to know, the Amalakites were targeted for destruction on account of their religion, or lack of it. The instruction manual reads:

The Amalekites had heard about Israel’s true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment.

The instruction manual goes on to champion obedience in all things. In fact, pretty much every lesson that the Good News Club gives involves reminding children that they must, at all costs, obey. If God tells you to kill nonbelievers, he really wants you to kill them all. No questions asked, no exceptions allowed.

Dakota O’Leary writes

Educating Christian fundamentalists simply doesn’t work. They do not accept any education that is in direct conflict with their worldview. What remains is to educate the rest of the American populace about Christian fundamentalism and dominionism, educating the American populace about the David Bartons of the world, so that when elections occur, an educated populace can reject the infiltration of fundamentalism on the rest of American society, which will, given the right opportunity (usually in a climate of fear like 9/11), erode American democracy entirely and push our nation into the fringes of the world into irrelevance.

Every American should know that Anti-intellectualism – as advocated by large and vocal elements within the Republican Party is dangerous to the future of their nation. but they also should know that those fundamentalist Christians threaten world peace, by their continuous actions against Muslims and against people who use the word “Allah”.

For the future of the States there is also the education danger, by having the students not to see how the world evolves and how everything is related with each other. Students who are protected from “globalist” views and real science will not grow up to be leaders. If the Americans themselves do not take care of providing a sound education to their children and to give them an understanding of other peoples and other languages they shall have to face a downfall of their nation.

**

Dakota O’Leary is a freethinker, and often sassy, scholar of theology and literature. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theology from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and her Master of Arts degree in Theology and Literature from Antioch University-Midwest. Dakota is a co-host of the God Discussion radio show, offering insight to the news stories of the week.

David Dimbleby who has presented Panorama, 24 Hours, People and Power, The Dimbleby Talk-In and This Week Next Week, The White Tribe of Africa and An Ocean Apart, A Picture of Britain, How We Built Britain, and Seven Ages of Britain.

In front of a live audience with a single take recording, precisely as if it were broadcast live, David Dimbleby as a major presenter of current affairs programmes and documentaries for BBC television knows to catch his public.

In 2007 the BBC commissioned a new programme called The Big Questions, which has a similar format to Question Time but focuses on ethical and religious issues. It is broadcast on BBC One on Sunday mornings between 10am and 11am and usually presented by Nicky Campbell. Both programmes are produced by Mentorn Media. Each week, in the faith and ethics television programme replacing The Heaven and Earth Show as the BBC’s religious discussion programme, panel and audience debate three ethical, moral or religious topics which featured in the week’s news.

All those big names you probably would not find on the simple new website Qusetiontime-Vragenuurtje from ‘Flanders Fields’.
But at that place there is also made time free for asking questions and is taken time to look at certain or possible answers on many questions humans can have in their head. It is hoped for that several people shall find their way to that place to come up with more questions and answers and would not mind sharing their information on certain subjects around our way of life, ethics, faith and religion. It shall look at monotheistic as well as polytheistic-religions.

To start of the site looked first at the beginning of everything, wondering what caused everything to start coming into existence. It questions if there is something or somewhat or even Some One behind it all. Looking at man and how he tried to find explanations for everything the site can not be blind for the worship of or belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. When looking at history we also can find that there where doubts if there different gods responsible for the different things we can see, or if there was just OneCreator God responsible for the Big Beginning or was there just a Big Bang from nothing?

In the 7th and 10th article is discussed how there are many primal ancient gods or creator gods worshipped in the world. When looking at history we can see many peoples have chosen to have mother goddesses and father gods, but we must also be aware that from ancient times there have been people who choose only to believe in One existentDivine TrueCreator God, Jehovah. It seems that many people had and have an other perception of God.

One of the many tri-une gods peoples worship or worshipped. One of the gods which is spoken about also in the Bible. “The Lord” (הבעל, Ha Baʿal) Baal, Baäl or properly Baʿal, a Phoenician deity and false gods.

Surprisingly also by people who worship one God there are different names to be found. The most known and worshipped ‘singular’ gods being Yahweh and Jehovah, though for the name Yawheh we must be well aware that there was in ancient times (Iron time: 1200-900 BCE) also the pagan god with that name who was part of a pantheon of Canaanite gods. the same as we may find a tri-une god by several Christians, there have been other bi-une, tri-une and four-une gods.

The reblog A Progressive Call to Arms caused several very different reactions. Pity some people did not want to react straight on the article and choose other, non public, ways.

History of Marxism timeline (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We very much appreciated the reaction of “camden41” a retired public school administrator and retired history professor, who took the time to spend a whole article on the writing and an extra one on our reaction. Though perhaps the impression may be given by that author that we do not know our history or do not want to see the “crux of the matter” or to belief Hitler “considered Marxists, Communists and Jews to be traitors.” We are aware of that fact, but that is just what makes us so weary about the president elect. In what way does he want to look at Marxists, Leninist, Communists, Jews, Muslims, refugees, Mexicans, homo’s, transgender and other people?

We also are aware of specific groups who would love abolishing the ever-enlarging systems of hierarchy, control, and environmental destruction necessary to sustain the growth of capital.

We also saw how certain people in the past made use of blackening others to get their goal coming into power. We also are aware that in the past many made use of the chaos and fear to bring others in discredit and to get people on their hand, promising that everything would change by them in power. And once in power they made sure that they could have the highest power for some time, getting rid of those who were standing in their way.

Should we not know when precious experiences in a person his life can make a very dangerous person of him or her, make sure that we look at the previous history of a person and come to look at him or her seriously, not making a joke of him or of his remarks. And Trump made remarks which should make us to think about it.

Should we not be aware where hate can come into existence and how it can grow fast like a virus? Should we not have our eyes opened seeing that people do want to shut out others and that marginalisation has become a favoured thing? Should we not be aware that some might think that marginalisation may be a strategy of protection, so that defence and obstruction cannot wait for the inauguration of an autocrat? Should we do not know what a certain person his sanctuary cities may be and how others may react on it?

Should we also not wonder how long people are going to take it that there may be political domination over them, having the capitalists squeezing workers’ pay packets, keeping individual wages for all blue-workers pretty much flat since a long time, having only a raise for higher level salaries?

These capitalists and their apologists hid the double squeeze behind their effective rhetorical use of issues such as civil rights and affirmative action to invoke in the late 1960s and after the “wages of whiteness”–which any attentive person should have figured wouldn’t pay any better than they did at the close of Reconstruction a hundred years earlier. {W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935; repr., New York: Atheneum, 1992); David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness (New York: Verso, 1991). }

Should we not worry when the president elect, though he might show to be calmed down, still continues in his line of thinking when he announced that Bannon, the controversial executive chairman of Breitbart News, would be his chief strategist, though he denied holding “ethno-nationalist” views?

Does oppression in all of its forms: microaggressions, street harassment, slut shaming, resource hoarding, not feels like hate? And is it not easy to generalise and should politicians not warn people to generalise, instead of generalising themselves?

Conflating oppression and hate is fraught with many more problems than such a seemingly small semantic shift would suggest, and if we are to effectively combat domination it’s imperative that we learn to avoid discussing oppression in terms of hate. {Why We Must Stop Speaking of Oppression as “Hate”}

When looking at our society we should not close our eyes for certain situations. There may be many Christadelphians who think we should not be active in politics, but they forget that does not mean we should close our eyes for what happens in the world or should not comment on it.

Even when we give our opinion we do want to have our readers to make up their mind for themselves and want them to give the opportunity to hear different opinions. Only by being open to other opinions people can come to a better insight and also can come to understand why and how others think differently. That way also people can come to see who can be going on dangerous paths of thinking and as such even can become a danger for the society. Only by exposing such ways of thinking the society can be protected.

It is not by closing our eyes for the things we do not want to hear nor see, that they will not exist. That is what our and our parents generation have clearly felt in the previous century. What happened in the Third Reich could only come so far because so many people did not want to know and did not want to see, because most often they were too much concerned about their own ego and their own well-being.

Today we should learn form the lessons of the past and should be weary of what is possible to come.

In the United States of America during this past year, anti-Semitic imagery proliferated on social media, Jewish journalists were targeted and longstanding anti-Jewish conspiracy theories got a fresh airing. Much of the bias originated with the alt-right, or alternative right, a loose group espousing a provocative and reactionary strain of conservatism. It’s often associated with far right efforts to preserve “white identity,” oppose multiculturalism and defend “Western values.”

There are too many Americans who close their eyes for the reports of anti-Semitic vandalism and other attacks which have risen. As the presidential race intensified, Jews started seeing their names bracketed with a series of parentheses in harassing tweets, signalling that the person had been identified as a Jew. The image became known as the Jewish cowbell and its source was traced to neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

During his run for president, Mr. Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to curb terrorism, claimed Mexican “rapists” were pouring into the country, making that Mexican immigrants also were looked at as perverts and criminals. For the African Americans Trump expressed he has no good eye for those who have “no education” and are “monkeys”. After Donald Trump won the presidential election, handouts where presented in many colleges with texts like “He’s much more likely to abuse you” and “Your kids probably won’t be smart.” Several universities made it clear that those flyer’s hateful propaganda and did not belong at a university.

One of the techniques favored by Right-wingers like Kobach are to demonize strongholds of the Democratic Party. They call these big metropolitan areas, a.k.a. America’s biggest cities, Sanctuary Cities, which is code for ethnically diverse areas that want to relieve tensions between its residents, documented and undocumented. They have vowed to only enforce local laws and won’t do the bidding of Federal immigration agents. Kobach wants to change all that and we know he will do everything he can, likely with the help of the other Kansas notorious K word, the Kochs. So many K’s…KKKoincidence? {Kris Kobach Rumored To Be Attorney General Pick, Would Oversee Deportation Policy}

On television we in Europe could see Americans bringing the fascist greeting, holding out their arms in a Nazi salute, shouting, “Heil the people! Heil victory.”

We also could see several letters mosques had received. In those hate letters the Muslims are called “Children of Satan” and “vile and filthy”.

Clearly the writers of those letters do not know much about Islam and Who they worship, because they wrote

“You are evil. You worship the devil. But, your day of reckoning has arrived.”

It also called on Muslims to

“pack your bags and get out”.

Authorities were first alerted by the San Jose mosque, which received the letter on Thursday November 24. The other letters were received by the Long Beach and Pomona mosques a few days later and in the latter weeks of November other mosques all over the country were targetted.

Law enforcement agencies across the US have reported 257 anti-Muslim incidents last year, which represents a nearly 67% increase from 2014. The CAIR has said that more than 100 such incidents have taken place since Trump won the country’s presidential elections, Reuters reported. Trump, who campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform, had also pledged to ban the entry of all Muslims into the country for an unspecified period of time if he were voted into power.{Trump will do to Muslims what ‘Hitler did to the Jews’, letters to California mosques say}

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-LA’s executive director Hussam Ayloush said the “irresponsible, hateful rhetoric” of the Trump campaign has fueled

“a level of vulgarity, vile hatred and anger among many self-proclaimed Trump supporters.”

Recent Posts from Christadelphians for you about: Messiah For All

Jewish and Christian literature since the time of Yeshua or Jeshua have pointed to Genesis 3:15 as the first reference to the Messiah in the Torah. Genesis 3:15 NHEBJE I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his […]

The first human beings had chosen to go their own path. As any good father would do when his children had done something wrong, God punished them. But as a loving Father He in His great mercy promised for a solution and preserved David’s bloodline and the Messianic promise. Mankind had chosen Yet, we each […]

Do you know where in the Bible we find God‘s first promise to send the Messiah? The answer is foundational to our faith because within this first Messianic Prophecy mentioned in the Bible lies our fate of eternal separation from God. Too many christians limit the Bible to the second main part, the Messianic Writings, […]

The Divine Creator of heaven and earth wished not to leave the ones sent out of the Garden of Eden on their own. Though Adam and Eve rebelled against God, Him having expelled them, the Elohim was willing to stay close to them and to help there where He could or where it was appropriate […]

Those people coming from the first man and woman in a certain way got infected by the wrong choice these people made. God gave a free will to the human beings He created. He did not want them to go wrong or to have it bad, but because they objected to His ruling or His […]

++++ I CORINTHIANS 15:28_ 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that GOD may be . . . ALL IN ALL. * To remember Php 3:21 who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that […]

In today’s reading we read that Jehovah keeps His promise and brings His chosen ones into the hind which their fathers possessed. “5 and Jehovah thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. 6 […]

Today’s thought “Amen” (May 10) In our Deuteronomy reading today the word ‘Amen’ occurs no less than twelve times! Very soon now the Israelites will be crossing the Jordan, but Moses will no longer be their leader. Their crossing of the Jordan carries great symbolism, “Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, ‘Keep […]

Today’s thought “… with all your heart” (May 09) Sometimes we use the phrase ‘half-hearted’ meaning – we do not feel total commitment to what we are doing. We cannot follow God and His Son, who died for us, in this frame of mind. Our chapter in Deuteronomy today contains a powerful appeal by Moses […]

Liverpool city and the South of the Low countries have recently had an influx of Farsi speaking Iranians, mostly refugees in Britain and Holland. In Liverpool and in Brussels, Eindhoven and Gilze, they have a need to produce literature in and maintain an internet presence in the Farsi language. This means that in Liverpool they […]

Recent Posts from the Brethren: Broeders in Christus

After the story of the creation in Genesis 1 and 2 we get the story of the partner of Adam, the mannin Eve, to be tempted and getting Adam with her disobeying God his order not to eat from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 3). As punishment Adam and Eve were […]

Living human beings Around us we can see people, male and female. Those living on this earth mostly think they are the most important beings. People may consider themselves as the highest form of earthly life. They should know that they are a product of the Creator, Jehovah God, Who formed them in His image. […]

Elie Wiesel wrote an essay on “Cain and Abel in the Bible” for the “Bible Review”, February 1998. In his essay he looks at mankind’s first murderer. Cain and Abel: The first two brothers of the first family in history. Elie Wiesel wonders why they do hold such an important place in our collective memory, […]

In the Book of books we learn about human beings, animals and plants, but hear also about celestial beings. In the Hebrew writings we find the mal·ʼakhʹ and in the Greek writings the agʹge·los. Both words literally mean “messenger” but are rendered “angel” in many bible translations, when referring to spirit messengers. (Ge 16:7; 32:3; […]

Matthew 12:46-50 – The True Family of Messiah || Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21 MT12:46 While still speaking to the crowds, look! his mother[1] and brothers[2] were waiting outside to speak with[3] Jesus. MT12:47 Someone called to Jesus, “Look! Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you.” MT12:48 Jesus responded and told […]

Matthew 12:38-42 – Signs in Jonah and the Queen of the South || Luke 11:29-32 MT12:38 Some of the scribes and Pharisees[1] responded to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign[2] from you.” MT12:39 Jesus answered them, saying, “A wicked and adulterous generation[3] keeps seeking for a sign; and, no sign will be […]

Matthew 12:33-37 – Judgment Day! || Luke 6:43-45 MT12:33 “You either make the tree[1] good[2] and its fruitage[3] good, or[4] you make the tree rotten and the fruitage rotten. For a tree is known by its fruitage. MT12:34 Generation of vipers,[5] how can you speak good[6] when you are wicked? For out of the heart’s […]

Matthew 12:31-32 – Blasphemy against the Pneuma || Luke 12:10 MT12:31 “Because of this I tell you: Every human sin[1] and blasphemy[2] will be canceled,[3] but blasphemy against the Pneuma[4] will not be canceled. MT12:32 And so whoever speaks a word against the Son[5] of Humankind – it will be canceled. However, anyone who speaks […]

Recent Posts from Bible scholars: Bijbelvorser = Bible Researcher

Lots of people saying Jesus did not exist forget that about that man there are written many more books and there can be found much more proofs of his existence, from his own time then about other people. There are classical or Greco-Roman, Jewish and Christian scriptures talking about events around that Nazarene Jewish master teacher, […]

The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) from the Hebrew Bible is a love song beyond compare— although it has been compared to everything. Some have deemed it ancient pornography. Others have sung its praise. In the second century C.E., Rabbi Akiva called it the “holy of holies.”1 Modern artist Marc Chagall’s interpretation of […]

Professor Charles R. Krahmalkov in the pages of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), wrote “In Biblical studies truth is often only a matter of personal opinion, or a test of scholarly perceptions, or a momentary consensus.” We would not so much agree with that. For us the Truth would be to cling to the literal word […]

The second Protestant church in Jerusalem (the first being Christ Church near Jaffa Gate) the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer its bell tower dominates the Old City skyline of Jerusalem. The Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation, one of the three foundations of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) in the Holy Land owns the building which was […]

Last year 50 000 Jews left France for better pastures. In Belgium we also find many who preferred to go to Israel and to face the difficulties there between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. When rabbi Prosper Abenaim first arrived at La Courneuve’s Ahavat Chalom synagogue in 1992 there were over 4,000 Jews in the neighbourhood […]

European politicians shall have to show its true face to the Europeans who look for a democratic and free Europe. Spain’s Supreme Court prefers to neglect the democratic Catalonian votes, which were already expressed in difficult times, the Spanish government doing everything to block it. In total, Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena indicted 25 former […]

In the United States of America we see a growing trend of limiting the freedom of expression. Not only in that world-power we may find that viewpoint diversity in the academy is alarmingly low, and that we can notice the next generation of academics being likely to be even less tolerant of opposing views. A […]

Ron Srigley, Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 February 2018 Administrators control the modern university. The faculty have ‘fallen,’ to use Benjamin Ginsberg’s term. It’s an ‘all-administrative’ institution now. Spending on administrators and administration exceeds spending on faculty, administrators out-number faculty by a long shot, and administrative salaries and benefit packages, particularly those of presidents and […]

A few decades ago mankind had its higher institutions to stimulate people to do research and to create new things. In 1963, the Robbins inquiry into British higher education, which set the framework for the expansion of universities over the next few decades, argued that learning was a good in itself. ‘The search for truth […]